Alchemy is useful to all character classes. Melee fighters can use alchemy to create buff and healing potions. Spell casting classes can use alchemy to create mana potions and related buffs. You can create potions for yourself, sell them to others, or give them to your party members and friends. Alchemists are well loved when they hand out potions.

Prior to patch 4.0.1 you needed five different types of vials. Potions, elixirs and flasks required some type of vial, which could be purchased from any trade goods vendor. There were five types of vials: Empty, used to create lower-level potions; Leaded, used to create mid-level potions; and Crystal, Imbued, or Enchanted vials, used to create higher-level potions and flasks. This is no longer the case. There is only one vial now, the [Crystal Vial].

Herbalism is not technically required, but is highly recommended as nearly every alchemy recipe requires Herbs to make and herbalism can alleviate most of the cost of leveling up. Also, the wide variety of different herbs makes it difficult to simply purchase what you need from other players, because many potions will require more than one type of herb to make and the herbs are often very expensive.

[Herbalism] - You probably can't afford to buy all your herbs at the Auction House, so you might as well harvest them yourself. Also, elemental life ingredients often get harvested with herbs and can be useful for leveling with transmutes.

[Inscription] - If you must buy herbs or get them from an alt, you can at least use the herbs not used for Alchemy for Inscription since both professions call primarily for herbs.

[Enchanting] - Not as good a second choice as Herbalism or Inscription, but nice if you want to be a one stop item and buff shop.

High-level alchemists can also perform transmutations on elemental materials and some metals for use with other tradeskills. Arcanite, which is used in high-level pre-0200Blacksmithing recipes, cannot be mined – it can only be transmuted from Arcane Crystal, which is derived from Thorium. Other transmutations are possible; see the recipe list below.

Before an alchemist can perform transmutations, he or she must create a [Philosopher's Stone] (or equivalent). This stone must be in the inventory or equipped to perform any transmutations, and it is not consumed when a transmutation is done. Making multiple Philosopher's Stones will not reduce the cool down time. Philosopher's Stones are also soulbound and cannot be disenchanted, so it is not advised to create more than one. As of patch 2.4, all transmutations EXCEPT Arcanite and Titanium (as of Patch 3.3) share a cool down timer. After transmuting Gold, Truesilver or Truegold, you must wait until real-world midnight before performing any other transmutation. Other cooldowns vary based on the level of the transmute. However, you can transmute as much Arcanite as you wish without any kind of cooldown.

Elemental essences can also be transmuted. Essence of Undeath can be transmuted to Essence of Water, Essence of Water can be transmuted into Essence of Air, and so on. Essence transmutes have a cooldown of 20 hours, as does a transmute of Iron into Gold.

Once you reach Alchemy skill 325 and level 68, you may begin a quest to learn one of three specializations: Potions, Elixirs or Transmutations.

Being specialized gives you a chance to create an extra 1 to 4 (for a total 5) items while crafting pre-0600Warlords of Draenor items and while within the field you have specialized in. For example, a Master of Potions may be able to craft more than one [Super Mana Potion] using the same materials needed to craft a single potion.

While the exact percent is not known, people have speculated that this ability can happen anywhere from 10-25% of the time. A frequently cited figure in the official World of Warcraft Professions Forums is 15% of the time the extra items proc. According to the theory detailed below, extra items proc 15% of the time, and so one creates approximately 1.18 times the product due to procs.

One theory is that each extra item created also has a 15% chance to create its own extra item. Probability in this type of case is multiplicative and luckily analytical – we do not have to do a Monte-Carlo analysis to determine the probability. It works the same way as the probability of flipping N number of heads in a row with a coin. The chance of flipping 1 head is 50% or a 0.5 probability. The chance of flipping 2 heads in a row is 0.5 *0.5 or .25 or 25%. The chance of flipping 3 heads in a row is 0.25 *0.5 or 0.125 or 12.5%

So, if the 15% assumption is correct, when creating an item, you have approximately a 15% chance of creating exactly two items instead of one, a (0.15*0.15) or 2.25% chance to create three items instead of one, a (0.15*0.15*0.15) or 0.3375% chance of creating four items instead of one, and a (0.15*0.15*0.15*0.15) or 0.050625% chance of creating exactly five items instead of one.

This will lead to approximately 1.18 items created per creation (instead of the regular 1.00; assuming a 85% chance for 1 item (100% minus 15%), a 12.75% chance for 2 items (15% minus 15%), and so on; if you interpret it as 0.050625%, 0.3375%, 2.25%, 15%, 82.361875% then it would be approx. 1.20 items).

None of the profession specializations work on Draenic recipes.This means that you will not get procs from any of the flasks, potions and transmutations listed under the Draenic Alchemy tab in your Alchemy window.

This is done to reduce the impact the professions make on the gameplay.

To change specialization you now click the small, red "unlearn specialization" button, located next to your current specialization icon in the professions pane of your Spellbook. Once you unlearn your spec you will be offered the specialization quests again. You must complete them each time you switch specialization. The old system pre-Patch 4.3 of "pay a fee to change specialization" no longer exists.

In Patch 4.3, Alchemy Specialization quests have been moved to the Alchemy trainers and the old quests have been removed. The three new quests and rough costs from Auction House prices for materials are:[1]

Players can unlearn and relearn a specialization repeatedly. The cost to unlearn is one hundred and fifty gold. To unlearn a specialization a character must speak with the NPC who teaches that specialization. Once you are unspecialized again, you can see any of the three specialization trainers and specialize without additional cost or questing. It may be worth considering taking Potion mastery, as you will generally make all the needed quest items in the course of leveling Alchemy, and then switching to Transmutation or Elixir.

Note: You must speak to the correct specialist to learn and unlearn that specialization. The NPC in Shattrath City no longer offers all 3 quests to re-specialize and is only the elixir master.

Note: Each of the Mastery quests below has an optional lead-in quest available from: